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They pushed across the Marne to a depth of some three miles between Mezy and Dormans, and in three days advanced up it past Châtillon towards Épernay as far as Rueil. Similar progress was made eastwards on the line between the Marne and Vrigny.
The fateful attack began at 4 a.m. on 15 July after four hours of artillery preparation. Its object was to encircle the Montagne de Reims, the chief bastion of the line of communications between Paris and the eastern front on the Meuse, and to extend the German hold on the Marne from Dormans as far as Châlons.
One of our corps was delayed by an obstinate defense made by a strong rear guard with machine guns at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, where the bridge had been destroyed. "On Thursday, September 10, the French Sixth Army continued its pressure on the west while the Fifth Army by forced marches reached the line of Chateau Thierry and Dormans on the Marne.
It is difficult often to understand the details in the descriptions of these early meeting-houses, the colonial spelling is so widely varied, and so cleverly ingenious. Uniformity of spelling is a strictly modern accomplishment, a hampering innovation. "A square roofe without Dormans, with two Lucoms on each side," means, I think, without dormer windows, and with luthern windows.
And in a radiance, in a magic illumination, the newcomers danced in the drawing-room of the Commandant Dormans, and tasted that which cannot be found when sought, nor held when tasted. Old tapestries of tropical foliage hung around the walls, dusk upon one wall, dawn upon another. Trees climbed from floor to ceiling laden with lime-coloured flowers, with birds instead of fruits upon the branches.
We wondered anxiously whether they would be able to perform their task to get at all costs as far as the Marne, and let us know by dawn whether the river could be crossed either at Mont Saint Père, Jaulgonne, Passy-sur-Marne, or Dormans. Nothing could have been more hazardous than these expeditions, made on a dark night across a district still occupied by the enemy. The night was short.
German troops could be seen moving along toward the river, and a little farther inland McGee spotted a long line of infantrymen along a road paralleling the river. But they were moving westward, in the direction of Chateau-Thierry, instead of toward the bridgehead at Dormans. And in addition to the marching men, the road was choked with artillery, caissons, ammunition wagons, and ambulances.
The first real check to the German Army in its second march on Paris that which followed its crossing of the Marne near Dormans was prophetically greeted by the Bruxellois as the turning of the tide. The Emperor had gone thither from the Hotel Impérial in order to witness and follow the culminating march on Paris. But Foch now struck with his reserves, and the head of the tortoise was nipped off.
And did the general forget the 3rd Division between Chateau-Thierry and Dormans? Don't be like that brigadier general, and don't be like that American officer returning on the Lapland who told the British at his table he was glad to get home after cleaning up the mess which the British had made. Resemble as little as possible our present Secretary of the Navy. Avoid boasting.
At the second of these assemblies, when the chancellor, William de Dormans, had explained the position of the kingdom, the king himself rose up "for to say to all that if they considered that he had done anything he ought not to have done, they should tell him so, and he would amend what he had done, for there was still time to repair it, if he had done too much or not enough."
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